For more than a decade, NewWork News has surveyed the world's news having to do with life and work in the revolutionary new world economy. Over all these years, we have not made a significant effort to distinguish between straight reporting and editorial comment.

Written by Gary Johnson, NewWork News each day is more like a newspaper or magazine column than a newspaper's front page. However, nearly every item is linked to at least one original story from somebody else's "front page" so as to enable our readers easily to examine the original story without deliberate interpretation or commentary.

Some NewWork News items are highly analytical. Several of these have been gathered together for presentation below. All have been written by Gary Johnson.

Led by the dead (Wednesday, 7/30/08)
One can learn many things by walking around Pennsylvania's Gettysburg Battlefield, including how to be a leader. As Douglas MacMillan reports, many people have been learning how to lead from Union Civil War officer, General John Buford.

Incidentally, President Lincoln expected that a victory at Gettysburg would mean a quick end to the Civil War, but it didn't turn out that way. Instead, the War dragged on until 1865, producing thousands more Union and Confederate dead.

Lincoln apparently understood what the the Battle of Gettysburg's victorious General Mead did not--that military victory isn't about capturing or occupying territory; instead, it is about destroying the enemy's army. Then, the victor will be able go any place s/he likes, because there will be nobody to stop him/her. For instance, if the United States did not have a strong military in 2008, Libya, say, would be landing a force at Chesapeake Bay right now.

Anyway, while it appears that Lincoln did tell "dirty" stories, he almost never swore. So, everybody in the room was taken aback a bit when he first read General Mead's telegraph message claiming success because his army had "driven the invaders from our soil."

"Well, goddamn!," Lincoln exclaimed, shocking everybody within earshot with his language. The President had been trying for years to convince his generals that it was ALL "our soil." He never referred to "The Confederacy." Lincoln didn't at all recognize that it was a separate country, even for a moment. At Gettysburg, the point was to destroy Lee's army, not chase it back to Virginia where it could regroup, fight again, and prolong the War.

But, the Civil War dragged on, almost permanently altering history on the North American continent in ways that would have made everything different down to the present day. In the 1864 election, Lincoln's opponent was his previous general, George McClellan, and there were strong indications that Lincoln would lose the election.

It would have made a big difference, because the Democratic candidate had campaigned on the claim that he would "end the war" by whatever means necessary. In other words, he would simply allow the union to be dissolved and let the rebels go. If that had happened, the Confederacy almost instantly would have been recognized as an independent nation by Britain, which needed Southern cotton, and that recognition is likely to have been followed quickly by recognition from other countries.

It's also quite likely that the Confederate States of American would have annexed Mexico, meaning that, to this day, there would be two major powers on the North American continent, and probably some smaller countries as well. Europe's centuries of wars come to mind.

Incidentally, if Lincoln's generals--particularly Grant and Sherman--had not given him some 11th hour victories to alter voter opinion, and, instead, if George McClellan had won the presidency, it's likely that Lincoln would be remembered as America's WORST president, instead of its greatest, and nothing on the North American continent would have been the same since.

The American mood has brightened--a little (Tuesday, 7/29/08)
Anne D'Innocenzio writes from New York. that, as measured by the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, the gloom has lifted a bit, even though consumer confidence remains about as low as it has been in 16 years. Remember, as we've said numerous times: predicting is easy; everybody does it. Being right is the hard part.

More production cuts at GM (Tuesday, 7/29/08)
Now that SUVs are about as popular with Americans as mad cow disease, General Motors is trying to build fewer of them. With high energy prices, almost nobody is buying them. Trucks are a somewhat different matter, because some people really need and use them. The high fuel prices have cut demand for trucks because it has discouraged people with "testosterone poisoning" who are basically hobbyists.

Thousands of people lose their jobs as two restaurant chains shut down (Tuesday, 7/29/08)
Bennigan's and Steak & Ale are about to shut down 300 outlets and throw thousands of people out of work. And, oh yes, Starbucks isn't shutting down, but it will be cutting a thousand jobs as it closes almost three-quarters of its stores in Australia.

Some years ago, there was a Starbucks outlet in Beijing's Forbidden City. It was shut down, but a replacement has since opened. As we understand it, the new location is called the Forbidden City Cafe and is owned by the Forbidden City Museum. Starbucks coffee is still served. Recall that for a very long time, ordinary people weren't even permitted to ENTER the Forbidden City. But, suddenly, anybody with sufficient renminbi yuan can buy a mocha there. Times, they have a changed.

Which would you rather buy--homogeneous product A or homogenous product B? (Sunday, 7/27/08)
A lot of competing commercial products are basically the same; but, if you're a marketing director charged with responsibility for helping your company stay in business and preserving your own job, you will do your best to create the perception of a difference when little or none may exist in reality. You simply CAN'T tell consumers that "our stuff is basically the same as their stuff," even if it's true. Unless you want to be out looking for your next job hours later, that is.

Similarly, when political adversaries are opposing each other in a campaign, a candidate won't be able to tell people that, in the long run, "voting for the other guy will be essentially the same as voting for me." Who is it that said that "winning isn't everything, but losing isn't anything"?

Even when realities get a bad name, they do have something to do with determining public policy, no matter who is office, assuming that the office holder is rational and informed.

It's hard to imagine how the great variability inherent in the attitudes of 300 million people can be boiled down to only two presidential candidates, but it can, and thank god. If there were twenty candidates instead of two, for instance, somebody's going to win the presidency with only five percent of the vote and, with so little public support, be unable to govern.

Sometimes voters have to choose the "least objectionable" candidate. This time, though, it appears that both men who could be president by next January 20 represent some of the best that American society has to offer.

Neither is perfect, of course. One of the important reasons that all Americans should make at least one pilgrimage to Washington, D. C. is that by visiting the houses of Congress or Congressional committee rooms is to have it hammered home that the familiar images from television are of people who are made out of the same stuff as the rest of us. My gosh--like ME? It's remarkable that our political leaders are able to do anything correctly.

It's important to keep in mind that even the brightest, most competent, most determined, most conscientious person won't get everything right. Whichever sitting U. S. Senator becomes president next time, it's highly likely that there will be foul-ups, but history tends to be fairly forgiving. By far, the most unpopular president in American history during his lifetime was Abraham Lincoln, and now his picture is on the currency because he has become an American icon. It could easily have gone the other way.

However they choose vote in November, many Americans, believe that Senator McCain is a great man. But he's old, and many voters don't agree with him on several issues. They may love him, but may not be willing to vote for him.

Senator Obama MAY become an historical figure. He may become a great man, but he isn't quite yet. As Jon Stewart has pointed out, he isn't on the currency yet, although one might not suspect that from watching him lately. Many Americans like and admire him, but believe that he risks falling victim to his own hubris.

What will be different depending on which of the two men becomes president? Maybe not as many things as you think, because both seem rational and capable of assessing realities. For instance, Steven Thomma believes that taxes will change, no matter who is president next time.

No longer the "dark side of the moon" (Sunday, 7/27/08)
Now that geography has become irrelevant for most purposes in the revolutionary new global economy, many professionals are returning to their rural or small town origins. Here's more from Sue Lindsey in Lebanon, Virginia.

For example, many uninformed people might still say, "North Dakota? Who on Earth would go to North Dakota, at least, on purpose?"

The reality is that living in North Dakota now is about the same as living anywhere in the United States. Same cable channels, same movies, same restaurant chains, same big-box retailers, same Internet, same Wi-Fi. A photograph of most commercial streets in Fargo, Bismarck, Minot, or Jamestown could be taken in nearly any city in the country and look the same. Good schools, nice neighborhoods, low crime rates, lots of highly educated residents, strong cultural resources, active intellectual life.

Moreover, North Dakota's economy has become increasingly diversified and is strong. A major nanotechnology project is proceeding at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, and you will look in vain for "foreclosure" signs in most of the state's cities and small towns.

North Dakota's economy is surging; there are more jobs than workers, and, again, living there now is a lot like living anywhere, except that it's nicer than a lot of places.

Help is on the way (Saturday, 7/26/08)
Four-hundred-thousand persons facing foreclosure on their homes are about to be rescued. Both houses of Congress have passed the bill that is expected to be signed into law by President Bush. The bill also provides unlimited support for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, should they ever need it. The new law-to-be brings to mind the old thing about how if you borrow a little money, you have a creditor, but if you borrow a lot, you have a partner.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Citizen Media Law Project (Saturday, 7/26/08)
Sun Microsystems first gave prominence to the phrase, "The Internet changes everything,." and media provide an excellent example. The model that dominated for decades, if not centuries, was "one-to-many." In mass communication, as we have understood it, a source distributes information to many people at once, and the number of available media sources has been greatly limited.

But, in a world where nearly everything is connected to nearly everything else, the one-to-many model is beginning to look pretty old-fashioned. Nearly anybody can put ideas or information on the Internet now, even though a relative few web sites have most of the visitors. Nonetheless, any individual who "publishes" needs to know the law covering publishing. The Citizen Media Law Project from Harvard is an excellent resource that can help keep citizen publishers legal.

Will Ford Motor Company survive? (Thursday, 7/24/08)
We don't know either. Moreover, the other major American auto makers are in jeopardy too, and, in fact, it's a bad time for some automakers outside the United States as well.

Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin report from Dearborne, Michigan that Ford will try to keep its head above water by marketing small cars built for the European market in the United States. Ford reported the largest quarterly loss in its history.

It appears that gasoline prices have brought about a major cultural change and market shift in the United States. For years, particularly those American males suffering from "testosterone poisoning" have driven gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive SUVs or pickup trucks, even if they have lived in the suburbs where most of the vehicles extra features would never come into use.

Another number 1 for China (Thursday, 7/24/08)
From its beginning the United States has been the biggest user of the Internet, until now. Joe McDonald reports that China has more people on the Web than the U. S.

Incidentally, our BNWW was one of the sites that China attempted to block several years ago, but, from all indications, they have given up.

The hazards of foreclosure (Wednesday, 7/23/08)
In addition to the obvious misery of families having to move out of their homes, the high rate of foreclosures throughout the United States has left homes vacant in many American neighborhoods, producing problems for those who are still in their homes.

For one thing, empty houses in a neighborhood aren't good for home values, which have been going down anyway. People who are not in danger of having their homes foreclosed are still finding that their net assets are diminished because of vacancies in their neighborhoods.

Also, vacant house attract squatters, can become "crack houses," and, at the very least, can attract a variety of "critters" which probably wouldn't move in, at least in such numbers, if the home were occupied. In addition, thieves recently have been stealing copper pipe, leaving behind gas leaks and possible explosions and fires.

Like most commodities, copper is worth a lot of money right now, and thieves have been stealing it wherever they can find it. For instance, copper parts have been disappearing from fire hydrants throughout the United States as well, putting lives and property at increased risk when there are fires.

Paulson says that Fannie and Freddie need immediate support (Tuesday, 7/22/08)
Not very long ago, many leaders were saying that the American economy simply couldn't stand for Bear Stearns to fail, so the federal government stepped in. Now, it is being said that the U. S. economy would not be able to weather the failure of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, so Treasury Secretary Paulson is telling Congress that it needs to pass a support package for the mortgage giants, and quickly.

If you're tired of worrying about about the mortgage crisis, it may be time to shift your attention to the related credit crisis again. In fact, Ieva Augstrums reports from Charlotte, North Carolina that Wachovia is cutting more than 6,300 jobs following bigger-than-expected losses.

What's good for the part may not be good for the whole (Tuesday, 7/22/08)
Candice Choi in New York says that many consumers are trying not to be consumers as a way of coping with bad economic times. Still, upon what do good economic times depend? More than two-thirds of the American economy is made up on consumer spending, so...?

On the other hand, it's this tendency to encourage a high rate of consumption that has led to America's great dependence on foreign sources of energy, our producing far more than our share of pollution in the world, relative to the size of our population, and our enormous indebtedness to China, America's greatest potential adversary in all things geopolitical and geoeconomic.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Coming of the American Revolution, 1764-1776 (Tuesday, 7/22/08)
As we've said so many times, history isn't dead. We respond to things in terms of how they look to us, and historical context and perspective have a lot to do with determining how they look. If society loses a sense of history, or remembers things inaccurately, it will be like the devastating memory loss that can afflict Alzheimer's patients.

During a time when many American adults aren't able to locate the United States on a world map--apparently not knowing where on Earth they are--it's particularly important for them to know where their country came from. The better informed Americans know that the United States grew out of British colonies on the eastern seaboard of the North American continent, but many aren't aware of any of the details.

The Massachusetts Historical Society provides rich detail of the circumstances and events leading up to the birth of the United States in their splendid site, Coming of the American Revolution, 1764-1776.

The summer of 2008 recalls the summer of 1931 (Monday, 7/21/08)
At least according to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the UK's Telegraph, and his list of parallels is impressive. It's all very chilling, because he believes that the world's economies are at the point of maximum danger.

Economic and political leaders don't seem to understand the problems the world is facing, or why they are occurring. As we've said repeatedly, there's no reason to expect familiar outcomes from unfamiliar conditions. Never before has the world been organized the way it is now, because it's never been possible before. Ours is an era of genuine novelty. The past is NOT necessarily prelude to the future, and the past cannot be used as a reliable guide to the future because the past occurred under fundamentally different conditions.

America's agricultural sector appears to be an exception to the bad economic news (Monday, 7/21/08)
Alister Bull reports from Kansas City that news from down on the farm remains fairly good, for a change. Land values have increased, as well as farm product prices. However, so have diesel prices, and American agriculture largely runs on diesel.

Of course, the cheery agricultural news isn't about those regions suffering drought or those areas that are still trying to get over massive flooding.

Can you even mumble that "dirty" six-letter "c" word? (Monday, 7/21/08)
To paraphrase Will Rogers, credit is just like the weather. Everybody talks about, but nobody sings about. No, wait a minute, Americans aren't talking about it either, it seems.

Jennifer Waters reports from Chicago that, for many Americans, talking about their sex lives appears to be less taboo than talking about their credit.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: School of Oriental and African Studies (Monday, 7/21/08)
The School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London offers the general public an opportunity to browse through its research output on this web site. It's an opportunity that many people, including Americans, should relish now that the world has become a "village" in which everyone lives and in which we all influence each other. For many purposes, geography has become irrelevant.

Secretary Paulson says that months will be required for the U. S. economy to get back on track (Sunday, 7/20/08)
On Bob Schieffer's CBS-TV program, "Face the Nation," this morning, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said that he believes it will take months for the American economy to recover. Not years, though, apparently. Here's more from Washington, D. C.

Another interesting point is that Secretary Paulson was Mr. Schieffer's second guest this morning, even though he's the one that other press outlets have been talking about all day. The first part of the program involved what CBS referred to as an "exclusive" interview in Afghanistan with presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, and that has been largely ignored by the press. It may represent journalistic perceptions of the extent to which the American public is interested in economic issues, as opposed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The consensus seems to be that conditions in Iraq have improved. Republicans, including the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, Senator John McCain, like to attribute this to the so-called "surge." Still, it been suggested that Al-Qaeda has been de-emphasizing Iraq lately while putting more of its energies into Afghanistan.

We're wondering about the extent to which Al-Qaeda is attempting to influence the American presidential election. Which of the two major candidates would Al-Qaeda prefer as the next occupant of the White House? Which of the two are they most afraid of? We don't know either, but we think it's worth some cogitation.

Lasting habits? (Sunday, 7/20/08)
The escalating price of gasoline and food has changed many Americans' spending habits, but many economists and others are wondering if the changes are permanent.

For one thing, a bit more than two-thirds of the U. S. economy consists of consumer spending, so the American economy, at least as it has been organized for many years, depends on a lot of buying behavior on the part of consumers.

It also helps explain the enormous indebtedness of consumers, and why so many Americans appear to have been hit so hard by the gas and food price increases. As we have said previously, it's because so many Americans have been nearly "tapped out" all along. So much of their income has been going to pay interest on borrowed money, and little has been left over, even for essentials.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Explorations in Black Leadership (Sunday, 7/20/08)
So far, Explorations in Black Leadership is a series of more than 30 interviews with prominent African Americans, and more are expected. The series comes from the University of Virginia and is directed by Phyllis Leffler and Julian Bond.

The series might be particularly pertinent this year, given that America's next president may be African-American. Incidentally, while Barack Obama's ancestry literally is African-American--his father was Kenyan; his mother was Kansan--he's usually referred to as "black," even by his supporters, which is harder to understand, because he is as much white as he is black. He's really "biracial," but almost no one says that. Of course, most African-Americans have mixed ancestry, including caucasian ancestors.

Senator Obama is not the first African-American to pursue or hold high office though, although he may be the first to have a realistic chance of becoming president. Jesse Jackson has run for president, and both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice have served as Secretaries of State. In fact Secretary Rice is the second African-American and also the second woman to serve in the very high-level role as America's foreign minister.

Is a college degree still a good investment? (Saturday, 7/19/08)
New government data suggest that it no longer necessarily pays off financially.

Of course, there are other important reasons for going to college, or, at least, for becoming educated. A growing problem for many universities now, though, is that people with strong intellectual appetites--just the ones that most universities want to attract--have lots of options for exposing themselves to information and ideas now. University enrollment isn't the only way to do it, and, for some people, it may not even be the best way to become highly educated. This may be particularly true now, if attending a college or university means accumulating debt that will have to be paid off over decades.

Apparently, Steve Jobs has one (Thursday, 7/17/08)
It's one of those "recession-proof jobs." In fact, he may BE "recession-proof Jobs." BusinessWeek's Albert Sun discusses jobs that are relatively immune to recession.

Meanwhile, as suggested in our headline, the world is still purchasing personal computers, and companies such as Apple are selling other things too. For instance, Apple's latest iPhone appears to be a roaring success. Other hi-tech companies have been doing fairly well too, such as Microsoft. Still, despite strong profit and sales, Wall Street expected more.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Lectures on Superconductivity (Thursday, 7/17/08)
If superconductivity could be made to occur at room temperature, the world would become a very different kind of place.

There would be dozens of important technological applications. For instance, the use of coal to produce electricity is a very dirty business, contributing significantly to to the production of greenhouse gasses and climate change. Moreover, a lot of the electricity that Americans use comes from coal.

However, with superconductivity at ordinary life temperatures, less coal would be needed to produce the electricity that Americans use because there would be a marked reduction in the losses associated with transmission. In effect, wind turbines would be more efficient too, resulting in a reduction in capital investment needed to build them.

So far, though, this collapse of resistance occurs only at extremely cold temperatures. Here is a series of lectures on superconductivity from the Applied Superconductivity and Cryoscience Group at the University of Cambridge.

Why banking customers should read the fine print (Tuesday, 7/15/08)
Well, maybe it doesn't even have to be the "fine print." Banks try to make it perfectly obvious that depositors are protected by the FDIC, but there are limits, and the limits are spelled out too. So, why has there been a "run" on IndyMac, and why are so many depositors angry? Too many people have been ignoring what banks and the government has been telling them for years and have put too much money in the bank accounts. Why? Aren't there other banks?

Maybe it all means that too many Americans have been taking too much for granted for too long.

Here's more on the fury being expressed by angry IndyMac customers shortly after its takeover by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Fannie and Freddie's Web sites (Tuesday, 7/15/08)
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been in the news a lot lately, so you may be interested in what they have to say about themselves. Here is Fannie Mae's site, and here is Freddie Mac's site.

Are these government agencies? No, they are stockholder-owned corporations.

Have they ever been government agencies? Yes, one of them has. Fannie Mae was part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and came into being as a federal agency in 1938. However, thirty years later, in 1968, it was made into a private corporation. Freddie Mac was created two years after that as competition for Fannie Mae.

Are there any current government agencies with similarly funny names? Well, at least one. It is Ginnie Mae, which IS a government agency within the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Their respective web sites explain why they have such cutsey names and what their respective roles are. In short, the names are much easier to remember and say than their official names.

Help for Fannie and Freddie (Monday, 7/14/08)
Perception IS reality, as the old saying goes. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are perceived by many people to be in need of government help, whatever the financial reality, so the government has stepped in to boost investor confidence. Will this action represent the beginning of the end of the housing crisis? No way, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.

But, Fannie and Freddie should be it. As Joe Bel Bruno and Stephen Bernard write, it might be foolish to expect the feds to help more companies. Then again?

The Fed locks the barn door now that the horse is gone (Monday, 7/14/08)
Jeannine Aversa reports from Washington that the Federal Reserve has moved to provide future protection from "shady lending practices." The new policy won't affect the millions of people currently facing foreclosure, though. If you've been assuming that lenders already have been doing all these things, it's best not to assume.

Another round is coming, but is your money safe? (Monday, 7/14/08)
If you're an individual, deposits will be safe if they don't amount to more than $100,000. The federal government guarantees them. But, don't put more than $100,000 in a bank account, or you could lose much of the difference. When banks failed 75-80 years ago, there was no FDIC protecting depositors. There has been a big failure in California, but, will more banks fail this time around? You can almost bet on it.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Green Design Institute Monday, 7/14/08)
Who cares what Al Gore says? It's the hundreds of published research studies to which we should be paying attention. Moreover, WHAT we know depends entirely on HOW we know it. It's why articles in scientific journals all have prominent "methodology" sections. They provide clear opportunities for readers to see how the reported results were obtained. If you don't believe them, you can redo the experiment yourself. If the results are wrong, all you have to do is PROVE it. Simply making up something isn't good enough. Simply accepting what somebody else has made up isn't good enough either.

The great preponderance of the evidence is that the Earth's climate is changing, and that the activities of an increasingly huge global population since the onset of the Industrial Revolution has a lot to do with it.

So, if you want to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem, by designing things "green," the Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon University can help.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: 10 Steps in Building a Wind Farm (Thursday, 7/10/08)
Even though one U. S. Senator has called North Dakota the "Saudi Arabia of wind," you'll also find quite a lot of rapidly moving air if you go straight south across America's midsection to Texas, where T. Boone Pickens intends to build the world's largest wind farm. If you've been thinking of tapping some of this energy with turbines, here are 10 Steps in Building a Wind Farm from the American Wind Energy Association. Yes, there is an American Wind Energy Association.

China's price increases have been worrying government officials (Tuesday, 7/8/08)
The Chinese government has been engaging in a delicate task. They've been encouraging economic growth and foreign investment that has been benefitting a small portion of the population, but can benefit the entire country eventually, while trying to hold back social upheaval that can come from the vast multitudes who have not been benefitting from the furious rates of economic growth during recent years.

Potential upheaval becomes more likely when the vast numbers of people who have seen their jobs disappear or their earnings decline also experience rapidly rising prices. The country's breathtaking economic growth has been fueling inflation, which is hurting most of the 1.4 billion Chinese. Not surprisingly, they don't like it, and they haave been looking for somebody to blame.

Wen Jiabao has called for continued vigilance as prices undergo their most rapid increases in a dozen years.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Transportation Research Institute (Tuesday, 7/8/08)
Transportation? Why on Earth would anyone want to do research on transportation, you might ask? Well, have you checked gasoline prices lately, or have you recently become aware of the joys of public transportation?

If you feel like saying that you don't want to buy the gas station; you simply want to fill your car's tank, you may understand why transportation is a hot issue in the United States right now. In fact, it always has been, or, at least, for the past 200 years or so.

During the early years of the country, traveling overland was rigorous and slooooow. Transportation by water during those years wasn't all that fast either, but, at least, travelers on the seas or by domestic waterway didn't have to find ways around trees or through tall brush. Rivers and canals offered great advantages; in fact, the grand houses in the Chesapeake Bay area faced the rivers, because they were the "superhighways" of the day. If anyone was coming to visit--or attack--they would probably come up the river.

For many years, information couldn't travel overland any faster than a horse. Word of the end of the Civil War didn't reach some parts of the United States for weeks after it occurred. In 1869, the first continental railroad was completed to much fanfare.

Career soldier, Dwight David Eisenhower, was a major for thirteen years, then became a lieutenant colonel as his career stagnated. Because there was no war at the time, military people could remain at a given rank for years and years without being promoted. He was afraid that he would spend the remainder of his career as a lieutenant colonel without ever being promoted again.

Eisenhower was well-known as an exceedingly gifted large-scale strategic planning expert, but this meant spending many years in offices. Finally, to get out-of-doors for a while, he volunteered to be part of an experiment to see if it were practicable, even possible, to move troops across the United States in Army trucks. Many of the photographs from that period show the trucks being pulled out of the mud by horses.

Anyway, this experience, plus an opportunity to study Germany's autobahnen up close some years later convinced Eisenhower that the United States needed a national highway system. When he became president in the 1950s, he made it a major priority, and is given much of the credit for the development of the Interstate highway system in the United States, which changed the country.

Incidentally, as everyone knows, Eisenhower didn't remain a lieutenant colonel for the remainder of his career, as he had feared. In fact, in only a matter of months, he was promoted from lieutenant colonel to four-star general and Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. His gifts at large-scale strategic planning paid off in the Normandy Landing.

The University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute was established in 1965.

Between Barack and a hard case (Monday, 7/7/08)
So far, only two sitting Senators have become president of the United States--Kennedy and Garfield--but that's about to change. Either Senator McCain or Senator Obama will become president next January. Today, despite a flight problem which could have been much, much worse, both candidates presented their respective plans for fixing what has become a sick economy.

Incidentally, his opponents have been claiming that Senator Obama isn't prepared to become president, because he has never managed anything. Supporters point out that he has managed an enormous presidential campaign with apparent facility. It's not his age that is the problem. Several presidents have been his age or only a little older. In fact, Mr. Obama is about the same age now as President Kennedy was when he was murdered.

A retired general has claimed that Senator McCain's military experience doesn't adequately prepare him to be the country's chief executive either. Given public attitudes toward Republicans at the moment, this fall's election should be a "slam-dunk" for Democrats. Yet, Senator McCain is running close to Senator Obama in the public opinion polls. It's just that many Americans of a great variety of affiliations and ideologies love Senator McCain. Despite everything, it's likely to be a close presidential election.

So far as we know, there is no "school for presidents." On-the-job training is inevitable, as is some initial fumbling. No experience adequately prepares a person to become president of the United States. However, even during the early part of the primaries, most of the aspirants to the presidency seemed to be high-quality persons. There are no guarantees, of course, but the country is likely to be in fairly secure hands no matter which of the two leading candidates is elected.

The new president will be sworn in at noon next January 20. By about twenty minutes after 12, some presidential assistant is likely to tell the new chief executive something like this: "Mr. President, we need decisions on this, this, this, this, this, this, and this by 2 PM." Also, even United States Senators don't necessarily have access to all of the critical information to which top members of the Administration are privy. Suddenly, the new president is likely to learn about facts that he didn't have before, and may have to change his mind about some things.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: America's Highest-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs (Monday, 7/7/08)
Traditionally, in the United States, at least, it's been assumed that white-collar jobs pay more than blue-collar jobs, and, even though this may have been true seventy years ago, it surely isn't necessarily true now.

In fact, one person spent the last 15 years of his career as a railroad engineer, even though he had once been a corporate vice president. When asked if he would like to move from the train to the railroad's management suite, he replied that he wouldn't for a lot of reasons. "I'd have to take a pay cut, for one thing," he said.

According to Yahoo!, here is a list and discussion of America's Highest-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs.

Good news: If you're in college, you may not have to make student loan payments until you reach retirement now (Sunday, 7/6/08)
Maybe it will be only until 64, rather than 65. This may be an exaggeration, but interest really can add up. Any rate reduction can make a big difference in determining the amount of time you'll be "paying rent" on somebody else's money and how much of your life's energies are consumed for that purpose.

Samantha Serum of the Cleveland Daily Banner tells about a welcome reduction of interest rates on some student loans.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The U.S. Conference of Mayors: Online Publications (Thursday, 7/3/08)
The American political landscape may be nearing something resembling an "inflection point," as engineers understand that term. In fact, Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, in their important new book, Millennial Makeover, indicate that America is about to go through one of the "political realignments" that have occurred every several decades since the 1828 election. The huge cohort born between 1982 and 2003, along with their effective use of MySpace and YouTube, already have begun to turn nearly everything upside down.

Following several years of partisan polarization, with its dependence on caricatures and stereotypes, something certainly seems to be happening now that a large proportion of Americans surveyed indicate that they are "independents," rather than identifying with either major party.

At the same time, the Great Mentioner has been talking about the possibility that Republican Senator Chuck Hagel could become Democratic Senator Barack Obama's running mate in the next presidential election. Moreover, former Bush II Secretary of State Colin Powell has been discussed as a possible running mate with either Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama. Even Bill Gates has been mentioned as a possible running mate with John McCain, even though he seems to have been more aligned with the Democratic party over the years. What on Earth is going on? Maybe Americans simply have become more realistic and their political leaders are simply reflecting this growing realism.

For instance, both Democratic and Republican mayors seem to face many of the same problems, and ideology or snide remarks about each other don't help much. The U. S. Conference of Mayors brings leaders together and encourages the notion that they have more in common than might be inferred from their various party affiliations. In fact, they've made more than 50 papers available on the Internet. Here are the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Online Publications.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Revitalizing Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination (Wednesday, 7/2/08)
President John F. Kennedy once remarked that the arts have more to do with our ends than our means. They have tremendous capacity for humanizing society and inhumane situations.

Economic pressures encourage people to think of education mostly in terms of jobs or career preparation, but, in the long-run, education for living and education for democracy may be even more important than education for work because of what they can do to sustain society as a place people will want to live and where individuals will not be forced to pretend that they are more alike than they really are.

The famed RAND Corporation has been looking into public-private partnerships as a way of restoring arts education in public school districts. Here is RAND's report, Revitalizing Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Tips for Homeowners on the Brink (Tuesday, 7/1/08)
If you're in danger of having to move from your house to the curb out front, here are some tips for homeowners on the brink.

Incidentally, technically speaking, Americans who are facing the prospect of foreclosure really aren't "homeowners." If they were, nobody would be able to foreclose on them. Most people who live in houses pay for them over a period of decades. During the intervening time, a bank or some other lender really is the "homeowner."